‘There are some conversations’: ‘The Marvels’ star who ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ cruelly snubbed teases the X-Men return of the century

To the frustration of comics fans everywhere, the MCU has continued its soft launch of the X-Men. While the studio has had the rights to finally implement the best Marvel team for some time, there has been no official word yet.

As it stands now, fans have had to subsist on scraps. The biggest progress in that department has been the animated series, X-Men ’97 on Disney Plus. A continuation of X-Men: The Animated Series from the ’90s, the series has had monumental success. New episodes have taken the old model of the original series, and developed socially conscious storylines. If this is the benchmark for what X-Men content can be expected in the future, viewers are more than ready to take that on.

However, live action has been less than forthcoming with its X-Men characters. Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness brought back many familiar faces from another dimension just to kill them off. The Marvels came even closer when it brought back one fan-favorite character — though still in an alternate dimension. Kelsey Grammer’s portrayal of Beast makes a surprising and appreciated appearance in a post-credits sequence of the film. Though with only a few lines of dialogue, it was a sign that perhaps there is more to come in the MCU’s future.

Is Beast returning to the MCU?

Since the film’s release in 2023, there has been no word about bringing the X-Men to the forefront. 2024’s hit Deadpool & Wolverine was the closest to making this dream a reality, but it was still only a wink at the audience. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) enlists the help of a Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) variant from another reality to help save his world from dying. They travel into the Void to see all of the Marvel hits like Pyro (Aaron Stanford) and Elektra (Jennifer Garner). Deadpool & Wolverine was yet another slam dunk in the eyes of fans, so what is the hold-up in bringing the X-Men back?

Even a sliver of hope would be enough to keep us going. Perhaps Grammer is here to help. In a conversation with comicbook.com, the Frasier actor played future iterations of Beast close to the chest.

“There’s nothing I can talk about. What I do know is that there was a huge sort of outburst when I showed up at the end of The Marvels, I guess it was. The response was really almost… it wasn’t unexpected. There’d be some response, but it was pretty overwhelming, and so there are some conversations.”

Realistically, that is probably as much as Marvel would allow him to say. But it is more than fans have had for the past year. Perhaps this is a sign that things are about to change in the future. It may also be exactly what Marvel needs to get out of its plateau. It hasn’t been a secret that the excitement surrounding the brand has waned.

With the exception of WandaVision and Loki, the oversaturation of Marvel television has diminished the brand. The obvious solution is to fully incorporate the X-Men. The reaction to appearances of these characters in Deadpool and other films is, as Grammer states, overwhelming. The only logical way to continue the MCU is to give the fans what they have been waiting for.